This week we posted two new #LitBeat features on our Tumblr. In one piece, Greg Cwik roamed Brooklyn as part of The Morley Walk, a tour organized by Melville House’s Dustin Kurtz in order to bring attention to Christopher Morley’s The Haunted Bookshop. In another, Michael Spinelli reports on a conversation between Saïd Sayrafiezadeh and Sam Lipsyte.
Double Shot of #LitBeat
He’s Got Game. Literary Game.
I could tease and build up Allison Hill's article on "Literary Seductions", or I could just let the first line entice you on its own: "I once slept with a man because he gave me a copy of Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle."
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“The Ukraine is Weak!”
Ever wonder why some countries get a fancy “the” in front of their names?
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“Var inte ond”
The most striking thing about Google’s effort to block Sweden from coining a word for “ungoogleable” (“ogooglebar”) is that the proposed Swedish word somehow sounds more English than its actual translation.
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Hear what everyone has to say but don’t listen to anyone (except me).
Suddenly, a Knock on the Door author Etgar Keret shares “Ten Rules for Writers” with Rookie.
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Your Adventure is Chosen For You
Last week, popular science fiction author John Scalzi wrote a contentious (but necessary) blog post that likened the lives of straight white males to “the easiest difficulty setting” in the “videogame” known as life. While comments on the original post had to be closed due to uproar, the piece was reposted to Kotaku where the discussion rages on.
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Taylor Branch and the NCAA
The New York Times gives Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch a well-deserved profile. I've mentioned before that his take down of the NCAA's corruption is astounding, but now's a good time to mention that his e-book, The Cartel: Inside the Rise and Imminent Fall of the NCAA, is even better. Branch also appeared on Wednesday night's "Colbert Report" to discuss the book.
First Draft of Infinite Jest
"Behind every great work, there is an ink-stained piece of notebook paper." Here is the first page of a handwritten draft of Infinite Jest.